Sony has rebranded its tablet range, unveiling the brand new Sony Xperia Tablet S at IFA 2012 - where Pocket-lint was on hand to have a play with the latest slice of Sony tech.

The follow-up to Sony's original Tablet S, the 9.4-inch Xperia S packs in more power thanks to its Nvidia Tegra 3-quad core processor.

We were able to load up some music and video with no problems, but haven't had time to test out the speedier S to its fullest. The version we got to play with was running Android 4.0.3, though we expect that will update in due course to 4.1 as and when the Jellybean roll-out gets into full swing.

From the front the Xperia Tablet S doesn't look drastically different from its predecessor. The screen has the same 1280 x 800-pixel resolution and is the same proportion - no widescreen version to be found here.

But it's the build quality and thickness that are its two most notable differences.

The original Tablet S wasn't the thinnest of tablets upon its launch, but this is one area that the new Xperia improves upon. It's also light in the hand, yet not too light which makes for easy single or double-handed use.

The aluminum body is also splash proof - and although we didn't have a spare cup of water to douse it in, that sounds like a top feature to us.

We're glad the quality of finish has improved too, because this was one shortcoming we found in our review of the original tablet. There's no flex in the latest model, which has a reassuring sturdy feel.

Will the Xperia brand name cement Sony's reputation in the growing tablet market?